“He Faked It:” 30 Times Employees Messed Up So Bad, They Got Themselves Fired
Interview
Finding a job is rarely a simple or quick task. Crafting an impressive résumé, sending it to potential employers, getting an interview, and reaching an agreement often take months. On the other hand, losing it can take just a few seconds. All it takes is one pivotal mistake, and you’re out the door.
Recently, redditor TeddyBabyyy was wondering about a similar thing, which led them to ask an online community the question, “Managers of Reddit, what's the worst thing an employee has done to get themselves fired?” And, well, people had a lot to say, from causing clothes to catch on fire to shoveling money out of the cash register.
Scroll down to find more stories of workers who got sacked for the strangest reasons and a conversation with the person who started this discussion in the first place.
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Not a manager, but have been in the restaurant biz for 30 years. Worst I saw was a 40+ chef hitting on and basically attempting to molest our 16 year old hostess. I caught him myself. He had her cornered in the dish room with nobody around. Even though he was a full chef and me just a sous, and 10 years my senior, I basically kinda fired him. Told him if he didn't leave now of his own free will and never come back, he would be leaving on a stretcher, possibly in a bag. Poor girl was in tears. It's been somewhere around 15 years, and it still infuriates me to think about.
She pressed charges, it was all on camera, and he was arrested. Got off light though on a plea, which also infuriates me. Got a couple months in jail (not even prison), years of probation, and didn't even have to register on the sex offenders list. Which also infuriates me until this day. He was never a chef anywhere around here ever again though. We blackballed the f**k out of him.
ARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!
Sorry. Had to get that out.
EDIT: I'm not a hero guys. I'm just what every adult should be. Zero tolerance to bullies and people that ignore consent.
I'm an ex Chef with 35 years in front of the stove and have seen this sort of scenario too many times over the years. When I eventually ended up in senior positions I made it very clear to all the staff in whatever capacity, that not only would harassment, sexual or emotional, and bullying to whatever degree, would NOT be tolerated and if reported they'd be facing a good kicking, then they'd be out of a job (and in some cases out of somewhere to live as many of my staff lived in), they'd also lose whatever tips were in the communal pot and finally they wouldn't be able to find work within a 20 mile radius as my contact book was quite full. Oh, and they'd not get a reference. Harsh, but it worked. I only had to do this 3 times over a 20 year period.
Cart associate at Walmart was playing on his phone while using the cart mule to push a large line of carts. He ran over an elderly woman breaking her leg and hip. Was immediately fired. Not sure what all happened to him legally, but he was out of our store.
Guy xerox copied multiple pics of his d@#k, put them in envelopes, and placed them under the windshield wipers of the female employees. Total creep.
Recently fired one of my farm hands because he had exposed himself to one of our intellectually disabled employees. He denied everything and had the audacity to ask if I was going to believe a “r****d” over him. It took every ounce of energy I had not to punch him in the throat.
Bored Panda reached out to redditor nicknamed TeddyBabyyy, who started this discussion in the first place and was kind enough to answer a few of our questions.
Naturally, we were curious to know what inspired them to take such a matter online. They told us, "I recently had to train a new employee. We work at a seafood restaurant. He lasted a week after he was caught defecating in customer food."
Trying to see the light in such situations, our interviewee believes that losing your job isn't always bad. "Sometimes losing a job lights a necessary fire under you to straighten up. Although the trainee had to have been on drugs."
Removing the high limit switch on a dryer causing the clothes to catch on fire.
Twice.
Literally just shoveled money out of the cash register into his pockets with 3 separate cameras looking at him. He took several thousand dollars.
Not a manager but HR here... had a male employee who would heavily flirt with a female coworker (to the point of causing disruptions in training classes and meetings) stop his work vehicle next to this employee at a worksite where she was sitting due to not feeling well. He offered to drive her to the sector office, which she accepted, then offered her an "asprin" and water, which, unfortunately, she also accepted. Yeah... he roofied her on the job, in a work vehicle, at a worksite. Thank goodness she demanded to be let out of the truck once she realized she was feeling really strange, and he actually complied with her request to let her out.
I hope he went to prison. That’s not even a spur of the moment s****y choice that requires planning to get the d***s.
Indeed, there is a big chance that something much better is waiting for you out there, and losing a job doesn't mean the end of the world. Most likely, the fear of losing your position is much worse than the loss itself.
Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that those who feared being dismissed from their role reported poorer health and more symptoms of depression than those who had actually been laid off.
Mechanic of 32 years got fired for disabling the RF entry card readers on the back side of the warehouse, so he could throw parties in it after warehouse hours, nobody batted an eye until they mistakenly invited the plant manager to it.
Not a manager but a carpenter with several employees but I had a worker doing a window replacement I'm a person's home. The room he was working in had a fully stocked bar. Employee drank a 400$ bottle of liquor and homeowner found him passed out in their guest room.
Supposed to drive a car from one city to another on a Friday. Probably 2 hour trip? Took it to Mexico and partied for a weekend and delivered the car on Monday. This was not even a border state.
One young co-worker called in on monday during spring break and said he was in another town visiting his sister and his car died and it was going to take a couple of days to get the part to fix it, so the boss gave him an excused absence and told him to hurry back when he could. That night on the evening news they were doing a story on the college spring break madness on a beach in Mexico. Guess who was front and center falling down drunk for the live close up.
Someone got fired because he went in the bathroom on his break and huffed the bottle of canned air and passed out.
He was a good employee too, what a waste.
Dumbest, maybe not the worse: A mechanic in my chemical plant wrapped expensive copper tubing around his chest and put his coat over it. It was a really cold day and it started drawing up to where he couldn't breathe - just as he got to the guard gate. The guards had a good laugh unwinding the soon-to-be-unemployed mechanic.
Guy was just hired, he asked to go home on his second day because he [pooped] his pants. Alright, s**t happens, a little tmi but what can you do? He must be an honest soul. Went home for the afternoon, came in on the third day [pooped] his pants again and asked to go home. There was no fourth day.
Maybe he had a chronic illness like morbus crohn? Then I would feel very sorry for him.
If so, he should have made the person in charge aware of the situation, of what he needed in that respect to do his job, and what the company would need to do to facilitate his doing his job.
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Serial pooper was never an excuse at work. My goodness they would just quit over the jokes!
Maybe he had a stomach bug at the time and was just fighting to come into work, since it was his second day.
SHÍT, BP. SHÍT, SHÍT, SHÍT. Every six-year-old knows worse swearwords than half the Pandas here together, so what the fúck is the problem?
I support your noble crusade my fellow panda ✊🏻
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Had a buddy ask me to get his friend's kid a job at a sandblasting factory I worked at. I helped it along. Kid got interview and hired. First day he gets dropped off and literally vomits in the garbage box in the parking lot. Boss had literally just was walking up to open the door for us to go inside. He asked to go home. They let him. Next day he was back an acted like nothing happened. Although because he was a redhead he got the nickname ketchup. We never called him anything else. When he decided to quit he just stopped coming in. That was like a year later. Just all around lazy and wouldn't pay attention. Prob real first job anyway.
Oh forgot to add that once he got fired for not coming into work the buddy that asked me to help get him a job started harassing me about it. I said I run my own dept and you need to talk to the boss. I gave him boss number and then blocked him. Ketchup never returned.
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Had a guy who was late one day…who then called and tried to get coworkers to bail him out of jail on the drunk driving charges he got…on the way to work that morning.
Manager of a store (mid 30s) stole around $1,000 of our store bank and used it to pay for his trip to meet up with his 14 year old girlfriend multiple states away.
I had one dude writing creepy fantasy stories about females AT WORK.....on the WORK COMPUTER 🤦♂️.
While I (God forbid) don't write creepy incel erotica, writing on the clock is totally something I'd do 😅
Maybe not the worst, but drinking beer during a Zoom call while on camera. At 9am. After asking for accommodations related to your problems with alcohol.
One employee was constantly stealing food from the refrigerator, that other employees placed in there for lunch and late work-night dinners. Eventually, after weeks of complaints the IT department set up a hidden camera and caught the woman taking two yogurts, a weight watchers TV dinner and a can of coke in one swoop.
I was a newly hired manager at McDonald's. The guy before me was working the cash register. This store was very highly trafficked, it was right off of the interstate right on the border of city and middle of nowhere. It was the first place to stop and get some food for travelers coming in, and the last place to stop and get some food for travelers leaving out.
It was not uncommon to have over 1,000$ in under an hour in the cash register and policy was to "drop" money in the safe at least once every hour. So this new guy comes in, works for a few hours, but the manager never did the drops. After about 4 hours, the employee goes to the bathroom and disappears.
Turns out he left with over 4,000$ from the cash register. Police were called because obviously they have the guys ID, address, and information on file. Only to find out that everything was false. He stole someones ID and social that looked similar to him and used a fake address. I don't think the police ever found him or figured out who he was.
Poor, poor McDonald's. Think of how many minimum wage hours that $4000 could have paid for.
I worked with someone that, after a couple months on the job, started leaving early every day. Sometimes a half hour early, sometimes up to half the day. Finally my manager goes to fire him on a Friday afternoon, except no one could find him, he had already left! .
Just a few weeks ago:
Salesman tells HQ that his very large national customer wants us to use a specific vendor for a multimillion dollar contract.
We set it up but have procurement run backgrounds on the vendor to make sure they are reliable, no slave or child labor, etc.
After digging down many layers, the founding documents for the vendor come back.
It's owned by the salesperson and his sister.
It was done quietly to save face with the customer, but the salesperson no longer works here.
We had an HR woman and a male executive at our company both get fired... They were accidentally walked in on in their executive's office... They were found to be both partaking in lines of c*caine, and the woman was busy playing the man's skin flute... Both were terminated.
Not at my current job but at a previous job a guy got caught trying to bring a heroic amount of c*caine on the airplane and when TSA pulled him out of the line he said “it’s not a liquid what’s the problem?”.
My stupid sister lied her way up to get an engineering manager job at a boat manufacturer company she has absolutely no education higher than a GED,/ HS diploma.
However boat company decides to give her a company credit card upon hiring and a bunch of projects for her and her team to work on
She has no idea how to do the projects because she is not an engineer. Has no idea how to manage a team as she never managed people before
She doesn't show up to any project meetings, so the team she was hired to lead never knew what to do. Time goes on and the employees that are left hung up with no leadership on what to do start complaining.
The boat company finally tracks her down and turns out she was traveling around the US site seeing and spending money at high end restaurants.
She was fired. Rightfully so.
Not sure if she had to pay anything back or was charged with anything. Sure hope she was tho.
He asked a coworker in the parking lot if he could pay him to complete his assigned work. He faked it through the interview process and was a terrible hire.
This was told to me when i first started my job but- someone drove off in a piece of industrial farm equipment. For reference- these are worth like $80,000+.
Guy took bereavement leave for his grandpa funeral in UK but instead went partying in Jamaica and someone snitched on him providing SM posts as proof.
Bank. One guy managed the dormant accounts. Incredibly nice guy, everyone loved him, had been there for years.
One day, after an audit, it was discovered that he'd been embezzling money from the dormant accounts for quite some time. Turns out he'd gotten himself into debt he couldn't climb out of and that was his solution. Not only did he get fired, he went to prison.
I had a colleague who was a SAHM, her husband was a high flying lawyer. Turns out he'd been embezzling money from clients for years. He went to jail, the family home was sold to recover some of the debt and the woman moved cities and had to get a job to support herself and kids. I felt so sorry for her. She'd had no idea.
I don’t remember the circumstances but an employee slapped our general manager and walked out. No, the police weren’t called probably because the GM was doing a lot of shady s**t and that’s probably why he got slapped.
Took pictures of women he thought were hot at the target he delivered to, then went to instagram and posted the pictures with a tag @target with the caption along the lines of “you guys hire the most beautiful girls”.
I read that as dumbest instead of worst and started typing this, so I’ll finish it out anyway. I managed a call center for a while. One of my staff was a 23 year old guy who just could not figure out how to get to work on time. He had his own car and only lived like 15-20 minutes away, but he would be perpetually up to a half hour late shift after shift.
We had a generous tardiness/absence policy - three strikes for unexcused absences but an unexcused tardy was only half a strike - and we were even nice enough to give him just a verbal warning at least two or three times instead of starting to count them because the call center wasn’t one that had like an inbound call service level, it was just outbound calls so the time you lost hurt you in other metrics and killed your chance at getting bonuses, but soon enough he had burned through five of the six unexcused tardiness he was allowed.
The last time he was tardy, I brought him into my office and told him this was his final written warning. If he was even a minute late clocking in without a legitimate excuse for the next 90 days, he would be terminated on the spot. That was on a Tuesday.
On Wednesday, he was scheduled to arrive at 4:00 PM for an evening shift. He walks in at 4:25 PM holding a Starbucks cup in his hand. “I couldn’t help it, the drive thru took forever!”
I took his badge and walked him out. I hope he learned from it.
I had to fire an employee who was calling out sick 2 or 3 times a week, every week. And her excuses were always the craziest things she could come up with, and quite obviously not true. I sat her down and told her if she called in sick ONE more time I was going to be forced to fire her. She swore she understood. Then a few days later she did it again. And was shocked when she actually got fired. #headdesk
An employee left on lunch break and didn’t return to her overnight shift. I was the opening manager and two of the cash registers had been turned off. I asked the overnight manager about the registers and he had no clue why they were off. Did a count and there was a $1,000 shortage. Someone bought a visa gift card but there was no cash for the purchase. I reviewed the security footage and there she is loading the card and unplugging the registers. She finally returned and confessed to a gambling addiction. She lost all the money at the casino. Loss prevention said either give the money back or we file charges. Her uncle came to the store and gave us $1,000, and she was out of a job.
Dude. I was working for a tech company and we acquired another company. The FIRST day the new employees arrive we have a welcome meeting. In the meeting we ask one of the ladies (older white woman) how she feels about joining her new team. This woman replies “I’m happy to have new bosses, the old ones treated me like I was their N*word*” The amount of jaws on the floor!!!! Oh my God. She was immediately let go. Lmfao wildest s**t.
This one bartender called in to see if her bartender buddy that night wanted to swap in times/cut times. She was asking him to close for her so she could leave early as she was sick. We expected a slow night so he told her to just stay home, all good, he’s got it covered.
We then watched her go into the bar across the parking lot, in her work shirt. One of our crew was off shift but hanging out. He ran over to see what was up. Chica acted like nothing was wrong, ordered him a shot and did one with him.
This was not her first offense. She was 23. No body likes you when you’re 23. .
When I ran a retail store I once had an employee steal money from the safe. I got a call from one of my assistant managers close to close that the safe was short money. I drove to the store and verified the safe was short and figured out what happened within 10 minutes. The employee took a broom and moved where the security camera was pointing. To make sure it was no longer pointing at the safe, they stepped in front of the safe. Unfortunately for them I could still see their legs on the camera and they were wearing shorts. This happened in the winter in Michigan, only one employee wore shorts to work at that time.
Called in to work sick for a few days, and when it wasn't feasible to continue to do so, they had to admit they'd been arrested for murder and were in jail.
Blew up 45 000$ worth of equipment through shoddy electrical work he had been already trained for.
To be fair, this one's also on us management, we probably shouldn't have let him have a go at even this simple electrical work considering how unreliable he had shown himself to be thus far.
At a local aerospace machine shop with computer driven machinery, one machine was acting up so the frustrated employee went to his car and came back with a gun and put 5 shots into the control module.
I'm not a manager but an employee of an airport cargo handling company. We had a guy, high, crash a brand new jet engine airstart unit into a jet engine. Bosses were not happy.
I used to run a large food distribution center. The overnight crew was responsible for picking orders for delivery the next day. There was a recovering alcoholic on the night crew who fell off the wagon one night. He snuck out at break and drank a whole fifth of vodka. Once he was back on the clock, he tried to stab another employee for picking the bag of potatoes he wanted for his pallet. A fight ensued and the drunk guy ran outside. We found him blacked out in his car with the doors locked. I was worried he might choke on his own vomit, so we called an ambulance. They didn’t want to wake him or try to treat him where he had a knife, so we had to wait for the police to show up, break a window, and get him out of the car. Then they took him to the hospital to pump his stomach.
Former assistant used his mom as a reference (different last name ... I should have caught it when she said she felt like she'd known him from birth ...), had none of the skills he promised. Final straw when he ordered himself a $75 gaming mouse for the computer and a birthday cake scented candle. After being fired, he left me a Yelp review telling people I was the meanest, craziest boss ever. Bless his heart ...
Ah, “bless your heart…” the southern “f**k you all the way down”
Had a guy working for me who was a recovering alcoholic. One of the other employees went to Cuba and brought him back a mickey of Cuban rum without knowing how bad it was. The guy drank it all in the bathroom before collapsing and nearly pulling down all of the fixtures. I made sure he got home and gave him an ultimatum - resign and use us as a reference or get fired with cause. He chose the former. The guy lived under a bridge for a while after before settling in with his father in another province. I'm still his reference for employment.
Worked at a hotel. One of the overnight front desk agents had to evict some guests for partying. After he had them removed, he realised that he had never finalised their check in, and he didn't have any information for the people on the room. Very apologetic. Accidents happen, and good overnight help is hard to find. I wanted to get at least a picture of the people he evicted. I did some research on the key used to access the room so I could check the camera on the time they checked in.
Turns out the overnight front desk guy made the key...for himself. He threw the party and there was no guest kicked out.
CEO walked into his office while he was m*sturbating. She was not happy with how he was using his time.
One of my former chefs got drunk, and probably high on shift. Smashed a door. Tried to fight the gm. Left of his bicycle but fell off it on the drive way. Which no one knew.
I come to work not knowing there was an issue the night before to the guys stuff all over the drive way. Tobacco, papers, filters, a grinder, alcohol bottle smashed, his underwear and I few other bits. I clean it all up on my way in. He’s not there yet so I start to prep breakfast and I ask what the f**k has happened the night before when I find the door. He finally comes in late at 7.30. Bleeding all over my kitchen from an open wound in his leg and he’s wearing shorts. I fire him for gross misconduct.
This isn’t even really all the stupid part.
The guy, so off his face on what ever substances he’s been on proceeds to forget that I fired him and comes into work the next day. I’m in f*****g disbelief when he comes in and I have to fire him for the second morning in a row.
Sounds like a normal day in some of the places I used to work at !! I was a Chef for too many years (38) and on my way up the greasy pole I've seen some seriously bizarre s**t.
Had an employee try to get someone else fired for poor hygiene. Employee stated that they witnessed a cockroach crawl out of the bag of another employee. When said employee was not fired for this, they stepped it up a notch.
This employee put a large soda cup filled with roaches and a note taped to the hood of a third employees car (who was indirectly involved in this situation). Third employee brought me to their car to see everything. Looked at the security footage and sure enough, you could see this employee writing the note and taping the lid on the cup shut before sticking it on the car in between the windshield wipers.
The note was pretty mean and degrading to the employee they wanted fired. It was asking this other employee to frame the first one by putting these bugs around the building and saying they saw them come from the other employees bag. We had to involve the police and the associate who tried to get someone fired ended up getting arrested instead. Maybe time think before you let loose the crazy?
I don’t know if “worse” means dumb or bad but either way this is a question for me! They get worse as you go down. For context because of where I work all of these acts and crimes were committed by teenagers, usually 16 or under.
— stole pizza and when asked what she was doing replied “I’m stealing.”
— was on track for a minor leadership role when it was discovered that he had been stealing ice cream products all summer. The description of the thief was very specific and this guy wore the same bright pink hoodie with a giant rose on it every day. Naturally the hoodie was included in the description. The guy insisted that the girl who reported the thief had him confused with an identical employee who wore the same hoodie.
— sold other employees already used employee tickets to guests and lied about it to the general manager.
— stole the iPhone of a born and bred New Orleans guy three times his size off the desk of the HR manager. He then refused to give the phone back when the guy he stole from and his big brother knocked on his door (tracking him down with find my iPhone).
— my almost assistant manager hooked up with a teenaged employee. (The assistant manager was pretty young himself, probably 18.) the girl was really into him and had been going for him, but when it didn’t work out she got upset, her parents noticed, and called us. We had to fire both employees.
— threw a makeshift shrapnel bomb at another employee, who put her arm up to block it. The bomb (a sealed metal water bottle with dry ice that had been inside for hours) exploded on contact with her arm, ripping it open and hitting another employee in the head. The bomb was accidentally created by another employee (dry ice in metal water bottle.
— Stole a car under the (truly mistaken) impression that he was borrowing it and allowed to do so. He took another employee in said car to go get food, with himself driving, despite the fact that he had no license or permit. He thought a school ID would suffice. He then went about 60 down a 30, swerved from one ditch to the other and totaled the car in the ditch outside the place of employment.
Scammers called and asked for $2k, she pulled it outta the safe and handed it to them no questions asked.
Had a closing manager do this. Fked over our hours for weeks since it was 20k. Should've known better than to believe a phone call claiming the director owed them money.
Ran a side hustle producing "adult" calendars. Discovered it because our sysadmins noticed he was using an anomalously large fraction of our network bandwidth. He was a downloading a *ton* of p*rn to harvest the images.
Married plant manager had an affair with an assembly worker who was his granddaughters age and a mom to two very young boys. The girl dated one of the techs who was 12 years older than her and worked at the same plant. The tech found out about the affair and killed her. The company fired the plant manager.
I worked at a food distribution center in the UK years ago. You could get into trouble for leaving the warehouse floor without authorisation and this guy wanted to use the loo but didn't want to get into trouble. So he done a poo in one of the 1100ltr wheelie bins that are scattered around the warehouse. He was fired, I think I laughed for 2 days.
That's on the company. Everyone has to have the option to just go to the toilet without trouble.
First job in insurance, weird guy wanted to be in SIU, the team that investigates fraud. He got it in his head that, rather than investigating external fraud as part of the claims department, they were a kind of clandestine CIA operation who were listening in on our phone calls and you could get tapped to join if you were smart enough and hard working enough.
He was fired for sleeping at his desk repeatedly.
There was a guy in my office who worked in the fraud department of the bank. The job was to block cards when the account holder would call in case of theft, or its misplaced etc and check if and where it was used , anything that is not known to the account holder. This guy really thought he was some FBI CIA level. He had Fraud analyst ( or department , I forgot) written on his house name plate. He was really weird. He used fake keychains of high value bikes and cars for his low value bike and used to hang the fake keychain on his belt loop so that it's easily visible. He got fired because they found a call where he was abusing the caller (forgot to mute his device) and the caller heard everything
My dad/uncles small family remodeling company where I also work. New hire says he’ll let us use some tools for a job we’re doing. Proudly says he stole them from his last employer. Later on, while driving the company truck, hops out and gets in a fight with a teenager right out front of the high school…that I go to…and brags about kicking this guys a*s. It was in the paper the next day as a mini riot. This guy was an adult just out of the army. Didn’t last the week.
Probably should’ve been terminated immediately upon learning he stole from his previous employer
No longer a manager but I used to be a GM at a small shop in my college town.
Immediately let a guy go that sent a text implying disgusting things with a hairbrush to one of our underage employees, who was very upset by it and no longer felt safe coming to work.
My boss told me I needed to calm down and we shouldn’t rush to let someone go because they’re flirting, and told the dude he wasn’t fired.
Girl quit, and business failed not even two weeks later. I was not sad to say goodbye to that place.
Had a guy selling plates of Puerto Rican food at work.
One day, someone catches him feet in air, rummaging through a dumpster for scraps of food to cook and sell along with his plates.
Gets caught red handed, decides to “play crazy” and shave his eyebrows saying “It’s for his personal hygiene regimen.
I don’t remember what happened to him or where he ended up. But that was the last time I ever ate home cooked meals from co-workers.
I can't remember what it's called but there are meals made like this and sold in some poorer countries.
Call center job, can't decide between:
The guy who lit fireworks off at his desk OR the guy who challenged a customer (who happened to be local to our location) to a fist fight.
Busy days for management but, all in all, probably the least remarkable call center firings that will be mentioned in this thread.
I had a coworker get fired for applying for jobs on a jobs site using her company computer at work. After she’d been warned about appropriate internet use and that she was being monitored. Had a different coworker fired for looking at p*rn at work on a work computer, also after being warned about appropriate internet use.
I currently manage software engineers. If you’ve ever worked with engineers, they can be a different breed. I haven’t necessarily had a bad experience with one, but have definitely met some characters.
I hired a guy. He killed the interview (it was virtual). Resume was great, had excellent references. My team alternates between 3/2 and 2/3 in office days and this guy had worked remote since 2011 and in his first day it f*****g showed.
Before I even got into my office, I had four complaints about this guy’s body odor. I wasn’t really sure what to think until I got there and shook his hand. I damn near fainted. I’ve never smelled body odor like that in my entire life. I immediately asked him to come outside with me because I didn’t want him stinking up the office. I asked him what was going on, if he had a medical condition I needed to be aware of. He had no idea what I was talking about. So I told him point blank he smelled like a bomb hit a diaper. He was shocked and couldn’t believe it. I asked him to take care of it and gave him the rest of the week to work from home to get it taken care of.
A week goes by and he comes into the office. Immediate complaints from people. One colleague threatened to walk out. I asked the guy again what the deal was and he told me “well I sprayed Febreeze on myself before I walked in?” My jaw almost dropped. Apparently this guy hasn’t showered in literal years and just washes himself with water from his sink once a week. He also smokes cigarettes and apparently only eats one meal a day and “drinks IPAs” for dinner. I asked him again to take care of this or there would be conversations with HR.
Conversations with HR happened, as you probably guessed. He was eventually terminated but one thing he told HR was that he WASN’T SURE HOW TO PROPERLY SHOWER and asked for guidance 😂.
When we brought up minor issues to talk to the employee about, they sicced their mom on us during their break, screaming, cursing, threats of violence and lawsuits. The person was in their mid-late 20s, not a kid. We told them to go ahead and not bother clocking back in from the break lol. The organization offered at-will employment and all employees knew this. It was a summer camp with most employees ranging from 18-28 though there were some older employees. We anticipated that this might be an issue with the younger employees but none older than 20.
At one of my old jobs, we got a call not from the former employee (competent adult in his 20s; I don't remember whether he'd quit or gotten fired) but from his mommy, demanding the guy's W-2 from the previous year. This was on April 15. In the afternoon. On a Sunday. Mama Karen demanded I call one of the business office people to come in and get her baby's W-2 so he could file his taxes on time. I told her he should have gotten the W-2 in the mail in January, refused to call in the bosses on a Sunday afternoon, and probably suggested she (or even he!) might have been better off calling before now. I don't remember what happened after that, so probably nothing.
I used to be in the news industry on the commercial production side. A few years back we ran a tragic story of a father and son drowning on a fishing trip. The father was a well known doctor at a local hospital... The very next day, we had a sales person literally approach the hospital he worked at and say "well it looks like a good time to run a new recruitment ad"... Our GM got a call from someone at the corporate level of the hospital and we never saw that sales person again. The GM didn't even bother to send an email or make an announcement about her no longer being employed. Managers were the only ones that were told 'why.'.
The really galling part is taht there ARE "managers" that will do this - "somebody died! this is time to make money!"
Senior exec tried to steal the company's IP and key employees to start their own business. Even got the CEO to sign a fraudulent letter to their potential investors. Got found out, terminated with extreme prejudice and all hell broke loose. F****d us up for at least six months.
Early 20's kid disappeared for a week on a h*roin binge. His friends dropped him off in the middle of the day the next week walking into the office high off his balls as if nothing happened. The next day his dad came to apologize, explain what happened, let us know that he was going BACK to rehab, and ask if he could continue working afterwards.
Pales in comparison to many stories here, but I figured I’d share:
I brought in a contractor who was *super* eager to get a foot in the door at the company I worked at. Due to company policy about this team, we were only hiring in-state. It was the first thing I brought up in the interview. It was reiterated by his contract firm multiple times. Day 2 we hop on a Zoom call, the guy dials in with a tropical beach in the background. Not a fake background.
Me - “Hey where are you?”
Him - “Costa Rica, man! Just got here late last night. It’s gorgeous!”
Me - “When are you coming back to the states?”
Him - “I rented this place for the month. So probably after that. But I miiiight hit up Portugal to see a buddy for a few weeks first.”
Me - “Ok. Well, you were told multiple times that you were required to work within the state. So you’re fired. I’m going to have your account deactivated immediately. Turn in your laptop with your firm when you get back to the US.”
Him - “But my permanent address is still there!”
Me - “….”.
In college I worked at a tire shop, it was actually a really fun job. I never saw it happen but one of my co-workers would take some tires as he was unloading the shipment truck, hide them behind the retaining wall outside, then come back at night and put them in his truck and take off. I’m still not even sure how he got caught but they fired him for it, which is too bad because I actually really liked that guy.
I had an employee use a company gas card on his personal car.(purpose is for company vehicles only). Got caught using his gas card on a Sunday Night at 12am. In the HOOD, not where he would be working but right near his house and not the time he would be working.
He admitted to it. I asked him if it happened previously. He said no. Got a warning letter……
2 days later I got the report he did it 2 previous times….lost his job the next day.
If he had just told me the truth he wouldn’t have lost his job. And I asked him 3 times!
What makes you think if you got caught the most recent time, you wouldn’t get caught the previous times?
Smuggled like 8oz of marijuana into a prison and gave it to an inmate.
We had a guy who nonconsensually licked a coworker at a work event. Not the worst thing I've ever heard, but definitely the most amusing to recount that I've heard.
After close one night, one of my employees robbed another employee at knifepoint in the parking lot. Came in the next day like nothing happened and was surprised when we told him he needed to leave and that the police had been called.
When I was a manager in a smaller kennel two of the female employees came independently to say one of the other workers had shown them some very inappropriate images and made a lot of inappropriate comments about the animals.
Checked his socials just to see what kinda things he's posting publicly and it's all the worst furry stuff and sexualizing animals. Also saw some pictures of him with the dogs at work that had some very inappropriate comments alongside them
He didn't work for much longer and lost his s**t when I told him we can't allow him to work around animals or give him a reference.
Oh I have 2. One was a supervisor that got busted in a police sting operation involving meeting up with minors at a park via a Craigslist ad.
The other was this guy that left work one night, chainsawed a hole in his pregnant ex-gfs apartment door and started shooting. The baby and the baby’s dad died, the ex-gf lived.
I was a media director and one of the guys on my team got drunk as f**k off Hennessy that we kept in a VIP area for clients. We had to shoot a commercial that day and the dude couldn’t even hold his camera correctly. He stole Hennessy that is for clients only and couldn’t help film the commercial. The next day I fired him.
Gave out their badge. Police were called due to strangers being seen in the building and entering an area they shouldn't be in. Lied to me. Lied to police. Told both of us the badge was lost. Later found out that the employee had given out the badge so their friends could come on-site to grab something for them.
He pulled the fire alarm in an airport terminal, and denied that it was him in the security video.
Employee was a gold bug. Would not pay taxes thru the old "I have ten kids" filing trick so IRS got no withholding. Came in Monday wearing flip flops and swim trunks. IRS had padlocked his trailer.
Not really a manager but a small business owner (wedding photographer). Showed up an hour and a half late smelling of whiskey and weed, got him to photograph a bit past the ceremony then told him to peace.
I'm a manager for a cardboard company. Three months ago, an employee got fired when he rushed into the office and was about to hit another employee. The reason, as it turns out, was because the second employee had kissed the first employee's fiance a while back.
Luckily, a third employee, who volunteers as a sheriff, had his pepper spray on hand. He took down the first employee with the pepper spray. Crisis averted. Needless to say, we fired the belligerent employee.
For a good while after, the female employees in the office kept asking about how the volunteer sheriff took down the first employee.
Bought Stolen Merchandise on Store premises and took it directly to his house in the Company truck. 48 hrs later a detective called & said he had a written confession. He lost 200.00, got fired and brought it back to my store along with his uniforms.
He's lucky he wasn't charged as we had a 2nd hand dealers license.
Years ago I had a very tiny business myself. The guy I had who would pay the few employees I had contracted stole from the account that contained their combined salary, to buy (and I wish I was making this up) furry foot fetish artwork. Had his access removed asap when it came out, but stupidly kept him around because I had no experience. So he went on and contacted a client by himself to swindle money out of them and use it again for his weird fetish. So he got kicked - later on the artist contacted me and told me he has debt and that *I* have to pay it now. Sent the artist away too. Half a year later, someone tried to hack our site and I had to quit it because I had too much stress. Doubt that was a coincidence after he was kicked, eh? Some people really are the scum of the earth.
The only person I ever WITNESSED get fired was at the abuse relief shelter for animals, she was teasing and being mean to one of the dogs, and holding a treat above his head with some “oh you gonna get it?” Bs. Well he did jump and get it, and accidentally nipped her hand in the process. She disciplined the dog by literally SCREAMING at him, well then he got scared and actually DID end up biting her aggressively. She got eight stitches and threatened to sue. We won the case and she got banned from the property
Guy would order parts from the warehouse then fake a return for them and pocket the money. Got caught when someone realized the quantity on hand didn't match. 2 brake rotors from the warehouse plus 2 from the return meant there should be 4. But the guy who kept track of inventory kept finding discrepancies. Didn't take long to narrow it down to him.
My immediate supervisor (Jerry) was on a business trip. Jerry got so drunk he was thrown out of two bars in one night. Driving to a third bar (in a company vehicle!) he drove on the wrong side of a highway. Head-on collision, killing the driver of the other car. Jerry was rushed to a hospital with a skull fracture. Turns out the person he killed was a ICU Nurse returning from a shift at the same hospital he was taken to. Jerry woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed, under police guard. Jerry also woke up just in time to hear a five-year-old girl told her mother is dead - that little girl became an orphan. Jerry got a loooong prison sentence. He had a wife and five children under six years old. They lost everything - went from a nice middle-class existence to welfare housing. (I once saw his wife pan-handling) I hope he dies in pain and rots in Hell for all the lives he ruined and pain he caused.
The worst I've seen was when I worked for a charity that helped Romanian orphans and a guy was fired for stealing from the charity. He wasn't even smart about it he just pocketed money that we had counted and put in the safe. The hard part was being a suspect for the two days it took our boss to figure out it was him.
Most of the text is cut off of these entries when I try to read them in the app; several other BP posts are the same.
Click on the text when that happens, since it's a screenshot the full text will open then
Load More Replies... Years ago I had a very tiny business myself. The guy I had who would pay the few employees I had contracted stole from the account that contained their combined salary, to buy (and I wish I was making this up) furry foot fetish artwork. Had his access removed asap when it came out, but stupidly kept him around because I had no experience. So he went on and contacted a client by himself to swindle money out of them and use it again for his weird fetish. So he got kicked - later on the artist contacted me and told me he has debt and that *I* have to pay it now. Sent the artist away too. Half a year later, someone tried to hack our site and I had to quit it because I had too much stress. Doubt that was a coincidence after he was kicked, eh? Some people really are the scum of the earth.
The only person I ever WITNESSED get fired was at the abuse relief shelter for animals, she was teasing and being mean to one of the dogs, and holding a treat above his head with some “oh you gonna get it?” Bs. Well he did jump and get it, and accidentally nipped her hand in the process. She disciplined the dog by literally SCREAMING at him, well then he got scared and actually DID end up biting her aggressively. She got eight stitches and threatened to sue. We won the case and she got banned from the property
Guy would order parts from the warehouse then fake a return for them and pocket the money. Got caught when someone realized the quantity on hand didn't match. 2 brake rotors from the warehouse plus 2 from the return meant there should be 4. But the guy who kept track of inventory kept finding discrepancies. Didn't take long to narrow it down to him.
My immediate supervisor (Jerry) was on a business trip. Jerry got so drunk he was thrown out of two bars in one night. Driving to a third bar (in a company vehicle!) he drove on the wrong side of a highway. Head-on collision, killing the driver of the other car. Jerry was rushed to a hospital with a skull fracture. Turns out the person he killed was a ICU Nurse returning from a shift at the same hospital he was taken to. Jerry woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed, under police guard. Jerry also woke up just in time to hear a five-year-old girl told her mother is dead - that little girl became an orphan. Jerry got a loooong prison sentence. He had a wife and five children under six years old. They lost everything - went from a nice middle-class existence to welfare housing. (I once saw his wife pan-handling) I hope he dies in pain and rots in Hell for all the lives he ruined and pain he caused.
The worst I've seen was when I worked for a charity that helped Romanian orphans and a guy was fired for stealing from the charity. He wasn't even smart about it he just pocketed money that we had counted and put in the safe. The hard part was being a suspect for the two days it took our boss to figure out it was him.
Most of the text is cut off of these entries when I try to read them in the app; several other BP posts are the same.
Click on the text when that happens, since it's a screenshot the full text will open then
Load More Replies...